BLIND'S PROFILE

author=dethmetal
Anyone who's been tracking progress on my game may know already that I love huge, open maps with tons of secrets hidden throughout. Well, this time I've outdone myself.

This map is part of an optional sidequest. In this sidequest, you can traverse these large mountains and kill up to three dragons. From the dragons, you can receive dragon scales which are used to craft some of the strongest equipment in the game. However, the dragons are extremely hard and, in many ways, this mountain is a test of endurance. The other dungeons in this game are filled with save points that restore your health, but this mountain will contain none. You must rely solely on your items to make it through.

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As you can see from that in-editor screenshot, each area of this large map will be extremely detailed; painstakingly so. There are many hidden pathways and such, as well. One of my design philosophies is that I never, ever include dead ends in my dungeons: no matter what, you'll at least find a treasure chest. (There are hundreds of treasure chests in my game at this point.)

By the way, there WILL be water added, but in the form of events so that I can make the water transparent.

Does it bother you that these mountains make little sense? The two mountains on the left have less cliff tiles and appear to "float" as you get higher: I did this show of the panorama more. I was kind of inspired by Blindmind and other people who tend to design mountains in this way, even though it's different from my usual style. Would you guys prefer the mountains to look more like the one on the far right? Sorry if I'm not explaining what I mean very well.

(The full map isn't completed, by the way, which is why the top areas are more scarce when it comes to vegetation and such.)

Wow, a pretty impressive effort~ Nice to know I could have inspired anyone, tbh. Conceptually, this map is great.

A few thoughts:
1.) The colors seem off.

I love what you're trying to do, meshing the tiles from Roco, SD3, Theo, etc to create a visually distinct setting. It's a great way to breathe "new life" into old tiles, but it can also be annoyingly time-consuming.. XD (Or did you just find that chipset somewhere? lol)

With this map though, the textures and color palette aren't entirely consistent. The cliffs are too desaturated, and a bit too darkened. The trees, similarly, are too bright and have a lot of "noise" in their shading. (Admittedly, that's most of Theo stuff.) Why are the flowers so nonsensically vibrant, and stones/bushes so subdued? I could go on, but you probably get the point lol. This can be a tricky thing to deal with, when you have pixel art from so many separate games. The style disparity becomes more noticeable.

Tbh, most people won't care about that stuff, but it's an attention to the small details that could really help you map really ~shine~ aesthetically, as well as functionally.

Here are some maps I did in the past six months. They aren't perfect, but maybe you can see how a little color-tweaking goes a long way:

2.) The map seems pretty... Huge. How big is that, 100x150? A pretty ambitious undertaking, for a side-quest. XD

What type of gameplay will this map have, besides the boss? Judging from that close-up shot, it looks very devoid of activity... Is it just overall in an unfinished state? A map that size gets boring pretty quickly, if you don't litter it with puzzles, enemies, chests, and other kinds of events. (If you have a clutter fetish like myself or BadLuck, you could also add birds, animals, weather, lighting, atmosphere effects etc.) It'll make your environment seem more "alive" and enticing, instead of muted and drab.

Again, this is something you can easily fix. Since this map is essentially a huge maze, with a lot of dead-ends, try and find methods to keep it interesting.

3.) Overall though, I like how you used the tiles (the cliffs esp) differently than their source material. I don't think the "floating" looks weird - it's pretty cool~ ^-^ Most of the issues I mentioned are more a fault of the tile-set, than your actual mapping.

Edit: Hmm, the colors did seem more passable on my iPhone.. although what I mentioned is still valid. I guess it depends on the monitor. XD

Wow, a bit nostalgic to think this is the final Smash news we'll get for this entry. Ultimately I'm pretty satisfied with most of the DLCs, though yeah... kinda surprised at yet ANOTHER Fire Emblem inclusion.

Also, such a cruel fakeout with that Geno Mii costume.. ;____;

Pretty cool illustration by Nomura:

I'm intrigued~! Coincidentally, I may be looking for a new Character Artist. I'll send you a PM! :D

Sure, I'm down~ XD

Wow, so they did port over FF15's battle engine~ I'm a bit mixed on that decision. But at least it'll cut development time significantly. Hopefully they can tweak things just enough to keep some elements of the original.

Visuals and production values look astonishing though. O__0 (wtf is with Wedge's whiny voice? XD)